can I post Parrot questions on Perl Monks? While these are not pertaining to Perl directly, the projects are somewhat related (Parrot questions are kind of like Perl-internal questions) and the user communities overlap. On the other hand, it has nothing to do with current Perl and could confuse people, so it maybe needs to have a special section on the site.

Of course, I could post to the parrot mailing list, but I like web sites better than mailing lists. There used to be a Parrot wiki, but it has been downed by hackers for quite some time now.

In the long run, should there be separate monasteries for Perl5, Perl6 and Parrot, or should Perlmonks integrate them all?

I don't think anyone is certain what will happen with Perl Monks or other resources with the advent of Perl 6, but I have no problem with parrot questions being posed here. Just be sure to put "Parrot" in the title. That makes it easy to search for (and visually filter, if you're inclined to.)

Ovid and davido won't claim to know what will happen to PerlMonks as Perl6 takes off. I claim we'll see more mentions of "perl6" and "parrot" in titles and eventually see more mentions of "perl5" in titles and "perl6" will eventually become "the default" assumption.

I suspect you're right, mostly. The issue that will eventually need to be addressed is this: Older nodes will all be talking about Perl 5, unless explicitly labled Perl 6. And newer nodes (flashing forward into the Perl 6 future) will be talking about Perl 6, without explicitly mentioning that fact. The result will be that as people search for some search term, they'll be getting Perl 5 answers that are not marked as such, Perl 5 answers that are marked as such, Perl 6 answers that are marked as Perl 6, and Perl 6 answers that are not marked as such, each from a progressively more recent timeframe in the history of the Perl community's collective mindset.

Parrot was (or is being) developed as a platform for Perl 6, and is part of the Perl 6 total project. The Monstery (PerlMonks) embraces all things Perl, including the emerging Perl 6 and its internals. Parrot questions, IMHO are on-topic here at PerlMonks. In the interest of searchability and clarity, it always makes sense to compose node titles that help to provide basic context for the question being asked in the node. If the question involves Parrot, it is smart to include mention of Parrot in the node's title, particularly where folks here may, at the moment, be used to thinking in Perl5-ish context.

Ovid mentioned he's not certain what will become of the Monastery and other Perl 5 resources as Perl 6 emerges and gains popularity. I have to agree that I don't know such things. But I do know what would happen to a Perl site that shuns Perl 6. I'll favor the 'embrace Perl 6' scenario while maintaining a kinship with Perl 5'ers.

In the long run, we might need some extra sections, though I think PM has too many bits at the moment, rather than too few.

In the short run I would greatly prefer masterly inactivity.

I don't know the optimum solution, but I'm not sure anyone else will for a few years.

It would be worth someone who knows a bit either creating, or scavenging some elementary stuff on Perl 6 and/or Parrot. There doesn't seem to be very much stuff on the site at the minute, judging by searches for Perl 6 which finds only three :-

The more I think about this, the more I believe we should have a separate section for Perl6/Parrot questions and examples.

It might encourage those few who are currently qualified to answer such questions, to monitor that section, and so help bootstrap some expertise in the general Perl populous.

As it it, those with the expertise, are by definition very busy, and requiring them to wade through every beginners P5 question in order to detect the few P6/Parrot related ones just deters those that might attempt answers--which is a shame.

TimToady does a remarkable job in popping up when required, but we could make life easier for him and the other guys.

The same argument could be made to segregate any question based on content: a CGI section, an XML section, a DBI section, an algorithm section, a Net section, etc.... then people with expertise in those areas would be more easily able to find questions to which they could contribute.

I don't know if that's a good idea or not. I am leaning towards good idea, but not good enough that I want to put up with the hassle of having so many more sections to browse through. I kind of like having SoPW be undifferentiated, so I can get exposure to a lot of neat things that I might not run across if things were compartmentalized.

What I see as the major and qualifying differences between P6/Parrot and CGI/XML/DBI etc., are:

The numbers of people that can in any way qualify as experts in the former is in the order of 10 or 20.

For all the 'others' it is hundreds or even thousands. It may be that there are only 10s of truely expert people, for any given 'other', but the vast majority of questions that are going to be asked are within the experience of 100s or 100s.

There are dozens(?) books available for all the 'others'.

The one Parrot book available was (through necessity) more a statement of intent rather than a definitive reference work.

Went to join the gridlock to see it
Held an eclipse party
Watched a live feed
I cn"t see tge kwubosd to amswr thus
I tried to see it, but 8000 miles of rock got in the way
What eclipse?
Wanted to see it, but they wouldn't reschedule it
Read the book instead